


And Whose Army?

by Persephone_Kore



Series: Woggleburg AU [1]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 08:59:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1184355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone_Kore/pseuds/Persephone_Kore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the prologue to <i>Agatha H and the Airship City</i>, the first Girl Genius novelization, the Heterodyne Boys are still in pursuit of the Other and attempt to warn Lord Womak of Woggleburg that they've figured out the next attack will be on his town. He doesn't listen. This is not quite what they do next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Whose Army?

* * *

Barry slipped into the mud, tried to get up and failed, sliding deeper without finding a foothold in the muck. Bill squelched to a halt and turned back. One of the winged badgers landed on Barry, ripping at him, and he was busy fending off claws and teeth until heat seared past him, carrying the badger off with a smell of burnt meat and hair. Bill re-aimed the hastily improvised death ray, taking down the last of their pursuers, and picked his way over to help extricate Barry. 

It was a relief to be rid of Lord Womak's flying badgers. Possibly the high point of the night, which wasn't saying much. The creatures had been both vicious and persistent, the chase all the worse for the poor footing. It took them a while to get back onto reasonably solid ground, then from there to their camp in the marshes outside Woggleburg. It didn't help that he and Bill had both been tired already. They'd set out as soon as Barry finished his calculations, to try to _warn_ Lord Womak that the Other was about to strike at him and his town. Lord Womak had accused them of wanting to see a mob coming up from the town for him with torches -- unfortunately a number of towns had already killed their Sparks in the hope that the Other would leave them alone. 

Barry sat still for Bill to wipe out the badger-claw lacerations with stinging iodine, and tried not to resent his brother for having stood around glowering ominously and left _him_ to do all the talking. 

Barry had been doing most of the talking lately anyway. Bill had grown ever more silent, ever more... focused, single-minded _(obsessed)_ , ever since Klaus Barry had been killed and Lucrezia taken. Barry was very much afraid for his brother's mind, and very occasionally starting to be afraid _of_ him. He wasn't entirely sure if their one-sided conversations did Bill any good, but at least one of them had to stay sane. When Bill finished with the cuts on his face, Barry started talking again. "I hoped we would be able to get them out. They'd have had enough time, barely. If he'd listened." 

Bill grunted. This was more response than Barry usually got out of him these days. 

"Maybe we should go into the town itself and try to get them moving. It's not as if he'd actually stop them. I think." Maybe they should have done that _first_. Womak had been quite clear that he was going to warn his townspeople about the dangerous lunatics pretending to be the Heterodyne Boys. Barry looked at himself and his brother. Mud-covered, disheveled -- exceptionally grim, in Bill's case. Unprepossessing. "I don't think they'd listen either." 

The problem with carrying on the whole conversation himself was that he tended to run out of material they hadn't both already heard. "We can stop the hive engines," he said, trying to reassure himself on that point. They'd killed plenty of wasps. Their plans for destroying the engines themselves should work. "But the town, once the Other's missiles start falling...." He suspected they weren't actually bombs, but that didn't help. He groaned quietly and slammed a fist down on their swamp strider. "Without Lord Womak's cooperation, we'd need an army to get them out of there in time." 

Bill let his other arm go and stared at the town walls in the distance, and then, to Barry's astonishment, spoke. "We have an army."

* * *

A day later, an odd little clank -- mostly a dinner-plate-sized trilobite with wings -- reached Mechanicsburg, zipped into the Jäger hall, and caromed off a wall into General Khrizhan's lap, where it split open down the middle to reveal a letter. 

In Bill's hand, written large and firm, it read, _Woggleburg. Now._ It was signed with Bill's blooded thumbprint. (Forging messages from the Heterodyne was a _bad idea_ , but it had occasionally been tried.) Underneath and extending onto the other side was a longer explanation from Barry, in a cramped scrawl. _We expect the Other's next attack at the new moon and want to evacuate the town but we couldn't convince Lord Womak._ Barry went on to describe the terrain (which he should know they knew from old forays -- ah, no, that was context for a recently created gorge and the state of the bridges), the current population of the town, and how recent weather had affected the marshy ground and the flammability of the trees. 

Khrizhan passed the letter to Goomblast and rose to his feet, instantly commanding everyone's attention. "Der Masters haff called us to Woggleburg," he announced, and over the rising growl of excitement, "Brodders, ve hunt!"

* * *

Barry's stomach flipped with mingled relief and apprehension as the Jägers first came into view in the distance. The message had gone through -- never guaranteed, especially these days -- and they'd arrived in time. Just. Probably. Before the Other's weapons did, anyway. 

But it was the first time he and Bill had had them out of Mechanicsburg, and he frankly had no idea what they thought about being called for a rescue mission. He was absolutely sure the townspeople weren't going to be thrilled about being rousted out of their homes by Jägers, but it was better than dying. 

They might even be able to go home afterward. The towns the Other attacked were usually not completely destroyed by the bombardment -- there wouldn't be any revenants if everybody died. 

The Jägers reached them quickly, and the generals came forward to exchange greetings. Or try to, at least. Bill glanced up and went back to cleaning his weapons, again, even though they were among the few things in the camp that weren't muddy. Barry sighed and hoped the Jägers weren't going to suddenly insist on getting their orders from Bill. "Sorry, he's not very talkative lately." 

"Hyu look terrible," said General Zog. "Both of hyu." 

Barry paused, thrown and trying to gather his thoughts. It wasn't a good sign when a single unexpected comment put him off course that badly, but it was so _completely_ unrelated to anything he had planned for. After a moment he let out a quiet bark of laughter. "I believe it. Are you prepared to assist with the evacuation?" 

"Of courze," said Khrizhan smoothly. "Hyu vant to get der town first or der kestle?"

 _Townspeople,_ whispered in Barry's thoughts. _Lord Womak's the one who wouldn't listen._ But the Lightning-Eater wasn't the only one who lived in the castle, plus he had most of the long-range weapons, although he was probably out of badgers. Exasperating he might be, but probably not oblivious or careless enough to ignore their invasion of Woggleburg. "Castle," Barry said. "I think there's time for both, he might be able to interfere if we don't, and _everybody_ who's still in the castle tonight is going to die." 

They went over the plan swiftly: clear out the castle; clear out the town; try not to hurt anybody unless it was necessary; Bill and Barry would help with the evacuation until they had to start monitoring the sky. Instruct people to pack up anything they could carry easily and then get them as far away as possible. If they saw the hive engines, _run_. Killing them was likely to be hard on the surrounding area. 

"Hyu dun vant us fighting der vasps?" General Zog asked, frowning. 

"We don't want to fight them at all," Barry explained. "We're planning to _burn_ them. We just need everybody out of the way." 

They were not actually conquering or looting the town... Barry was trying to think of further specifics when General Goomblast said, "Iz a rescue, Master Barry. Hyu vas in a hurry?" 

Barry was silent for a moment and then said, "Right. Let's go." 

It went... surprisingly well. There were people running and screaming and a few concussions, but taking a castle with a few hundred Jägers turned out to be a lot easier than doing it with a party of half a dozen. They did loot the castle, sort of, after all; at any rate, they stripped it of anything interesting that could be snatched up on the way out, although Barry did intend to give it _back_. 

The townspeople were less outraged than the inhabitants of the castle, and more terrified and shocked. One weeping woman grabbed his sleeve and told him, "You _can't_ be the Heterodyne Boys. They don't use Jägers." 

Barry stared at her a moment, feeling a little too dazed by exhaustion and events to deal with people who didn't use logic. "Madam," he said "we normally don't, but nobody else _could_." 

But reluctant as they were, the people got _out_. The Jägers resorted to picking up some of them and carrying them bodily out of town, but they got out. Bill and Barry left them to it at sundown to start their own observations, traced the hive engines, and watched them until there was no possible doubt they were the source of both soldiers and slaver swarm before Bill set off the phosphorus grenades. The two of them circled the fire until they were certain no more soldiers were trying to escape, then ran for their own lives from the furious heat as the trees ignited above them. 

They found and rejoined the Jägers and the still-protesting refugees. Bill hauled a dead soldier-wasp with him, half charred black and with its claws crushed, and let it slide to the ground at Lord Womak's feet.

The first fiery boulder smashed into the castle up on the crag, and every voice went silent. 

No one spoke, though many wept, while the remaining boulders fell. When it seemed to be over and low murmurs were starting, Barry finally spoke up. "We're sorry," he said, and townspeople and Jägers alike went quiet and looked at him. He cleared his throat. "Bill and I would have preferred a calmer evacuation, but there wasn't a lot of time and we know you can't listen seriously to every maniac who shows up howling that the Other is about to attack." He didn't look at Lord Womak. "Tonight is unprecedented. An accurate prediction that gave us time to clear the town and destroy the wasps--" He raised his voice over a few moans. "Destroy all the wasps _before_ they could attack or create any revenants." To his surprise, the Jägers started up a cheer at this, and after a few seconds to get over the shock of cheering Jägers and think about what he'd actually said, the townspeople joined in. "We'd all better stay out here tonight, but in the morning you can return to your homes," those who still had homes, "and we'll help you start rebuilding." 

The Jägers began setting up yurts everywhere there was a patch of reasonably solid ground; when they ran out of solid ground, they rolled out buoyant mats that Barry recognized and then set up yurts. There were enough to bivouac all the Jägers with only moderate crowding; what actually seemed to be happening, he realized, rubbing his eyes, was that the Jägers were herding mothers with small children inside. ...And flirting outrageously with them, right alongside husbands without the nerve to protest articulately, but it was still an unexpected gallantry. 

"Iz vot hyu and Master Bill vanted, yah?" General Goomblast said in his ear. Barry jumped. Bill seemed to keep sneaking up on him lately, but losing track of Jäger generals was probably a bit much. 

"Yes," he said, meaning both the evacuation and the current distribution of shelter. He blinked a few more times. "This... this is good. I, ah, commend your initiative." 

"Hyu should sleep too." Huge clawed hands settled on his shoulders almost gingerly. 

"Have to keep watch," Barry muttered, feeling there was something not quite right about this statement even before General Goomblast gave him a very flat-mouthed look that appeared to mean _You are a Heterodyne, so I am not calling you an idiot, but...._

"Ve haff lots of Jägerkin who can keep vatch." 

"You've been traveling two days straight," Barry protested. 

Goomblast raised a furry eyebrow, tilting his head. "Vhen did hyu last really rest?" 

"Ah...." Barry was still trying to think of the answer to this when Goomblast flattened him gently onto a blanket and rolled him up in it.

* * *

Barry woke slowly, for once, instead of jolting awake. After a few minutes of lying still, warm, and dry, he felt more alert than he had for weeks, outside of the madness place, but also very confused. _Where_ was he, exactly, and where had the roof come from? Why couldn't he move, and why wasn't he more worried about this? 

Memory caught up with wakefulness. Jägers. Yurt. Blanket. Okay. Everything was, if not exactly all right, at least reasonably well explained. 

He was still rolled tightly in the blanket, arms firmly confined. Bill was beside him, likewise wrapped up and still sound asleep. There were no townspeople in this yurt, only several bloodstained Jägers. Barry determined that he was pinning down the edge of his blanket and rolled off it, then unwound himself and brushed off an inordinate amount of dried mud before padding over to check the Jägers. It looked like they'd been put in here to sleep off injuries, but they were healing well enough they probably wouldn't require intervention. At any rate not urgently enough to wake them up for it. Barry pulled his boots on and took the blanket outdoors to shake out the mud. 

General Zog was guarding the yurt personally. Seated casually, but assuming he couldn't move fast from that position would be a potentially fatal mistake. "Good morning, General," Barry said.

"Hoy!" Zog twisted around to look up at him. "Hyu iz avake already?" 

Barry regarded the sky visible through the overarching trees with some dismay. It was full daylight, maybe midmorning. "Already? I'd meant to get started by now." He looked around, expecting wakeful, impatient, probably very nervous townspeople, and saw only a bare few so much as sitting up. Most of them were lying down, apparently sleeping at least as deeply as Bill. The doors to the yurts were hanging still. "Although... apparently nobody from Woggleburg is in that much of a hurry, unless they already left." 

"Heh. Hyu is _mostly_ avake, enyvay." Zog clapped him on the shoulder. "Dey did not sleep until verra late. Dey are not used to de excitement. Dey vant der valls around dem." Zog peered critically toward the town. "Iz not such goot valls," he muttered. 

"Not like Mechanicsburg's," Barry conceded. Nobody's walls were like Mechanicsburg's. Even now, with only half the Jägers to man them and the heart of the defenses torn out. He still remembered the Castle screaming. He had been afraid Bill's mind was just as broken; he still wasn't completely sure he'd been wrong. "Did they calm down or just drop from exhaustion?" 

"Hy dunno." Zog grinned. "Ve tell dem de two most dangerous tings in de svamp came to protect dem, so iz safe." 

"Two?" Barry arched an eyebrow. 

"Vell, hyu _iz_ de Heterodynes." 

Of course. "I'm sure they found that very comforting." At least it wasn't keeping them awake at night. 

"Vot haff hyu and Master Bill been doing to hyuselfs?" Zog asked. "Hyu are both exhausted. Master Bill hardly speaks. Und hyu is all cut op." 

Barry remembered the gouges and automatically raised a hand to poke at one on his cheek. "Badgers," he said. "There were badgers." 

Zog looked at him as if this was not an adequate explanation. Barry was forced to agree with him, but not out loud. "Hyu haff a lot of problems vit badgers?"

"It's been a long few years." But they'd _won_ this time. Nobody died this time, and Barry's theory had been confirmed. He put his shoulders back, breathing deeply. "But I think we know where the Other is, now." 

Zog sat up eagerly. "Hoo! Vhen do ve go?" 

Barry blinked at him, derailed. "What?" 

"Dot iz vhy hyu sent for us, yez?" 

"No, we--" Barry paused. Maybe that had been part of Bill's thought process. It wasn't as if he'd know, lately. "We sent for you to evacuate Woggleburg. We weren't sure of the theory until the attack actually came." 

General Zog frowned at him. "Master Barry. Vas hyu two meaning to go _alone_?" 

He was being scolded by a Jäger. This was new. Or at least it hadn't happened since he was fourteen. "We've managed so far." 

"Hyu iz supposed to be schmott guys," Zog grumbled. Barry expected him to say they didn't look like they were doing so well. "Hyu hunt like wolves." 

That was not where he'd thought this was going. Actually, he wasn't sure where this _was_ going. "Come again?" 

"Vhen hyu go after a Spark. Cut your quarry out from his armies und monsters und devices, yah? Den wear him out." 

_Now_ he could see where it was going. "And you think we should take the whole pack this time. Well -- half of it." Which put him and Bill as wolves alongside the Jägers now, a troubling image. But they _had_ called them... and sure, Lord Womak's household and most of Woggleburg might have thought for a while that the Heterodyne Boys had reverted to type and decided to carry them off as experimental subjects, but they'd seen the rocks fall and they'd _lived_. 

"Hyu vant to let de Odder do it to _hyu_?" Zog asked. "Hyu find him, sure, but hyu dun know vot he has. Ve know hyu beat everybody else, but... ve do not vant to lose hyu." 

Barry blinked and tried not to look skeptical. Startled was probably a lost cause. He _knew_ the Jägers were... discontented with him and Bill compared to their father and any number of preceding generations, even if Vole had been the only one to try to do anything about it. On the other hand, they were the only Heterodynes, right now, and so for most of the Jägers the troth still held. He rubbed his eyes, remembering how the Jägers had looked after them the previous night... looked after everybody, really. "You really want to come with us, don't you."

Zog's eyes burned. "Less hurry, and ve'd haff fought over who got sent." 

"Of course they're coming." 

Barry whirled to see Bill standing behind him in the opening to the tent, looking tousled but less bruised around the eyes than before. Well. That settled that. "I hope you're planning to help build equipment, then," he said. "We're going to need a much bigger ship than I thought." 

"We'll make one." Bill gazed upward, to where the morning sky hid their destination. "And we'll go get Lucrezia back."

* * *


End file.
